Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Marijuana dispensaries operate as usual, keep eye on raid

Despite comments from the Drug Enforcement Administration's chief Denveragent that all marijuana is illegal and that there's no such thing asmedicinal marijuana, Fort Collins medical marijuana dispensary ownerssay they are forging ahead with business as usual.

"There's always a worry because there is a lot of gray areas, but we arefollowing all the rules we can," said Drew Brown, co-owner of AbundantHealing in Fort Collins.

Brown, who appeared last week on the front page of the Coloradoan withabout 100 medical marijuana plants behind him, said he has been payingvery close attention to the DEA's raid of a Highlands Ranch medicalmarijuana grow.

DEA Agent Jeffrey D. Sweetin told reporters after the raid at the homeof Christopher Bartkowicz that technically every medical marijuanadispensary in the state is in "blatant violation of federal law."

Federal law does not allow the use or growth of medical marijuana.

"The time is coming when we go into a dispensary, we find out what theirprofit is, we seize the building and we arrest everybody," Sweetin toldthe Denver Post after the raid at Bartkowicz's home. "They're violatingfederal law; they're at risk of arrest and imprisonment."

And an arrest warrant sworn out by a DEA special agent indicates federallaw enforcement began investigating Bartkowicz after he was quoted in a9news.com story describing his grow as a "jungle of electrical wires andwater hoses from room to room."

When federal agents searched the home, located about 1,000 feet from aschool, they found 224 medical marijuana plants. Bartkowicz was onlyable to produce documents permitting him to grow as many as 72 plants,according to the arrest warrant.

"When it turns out in the end that this guy was a total idiot,I'm not that concerned any more," Brown said. "He wasgrowing too much, and he was next to a school. The list of things he didwrong is probably even longer than what I know."

Like Brown, Don Cruickshank, owner of A Kind Place in Fort Collins, saidhe's confident he has a good relationship with local law enforcementand has nothing to hide.

"I've always gotten along with the police and everybody,"Cruickshank said. "We don't really want to make it harder on thecops."

Cruickshank also said he's followed news about Bartkowicz'sarrest and believes his flaw was he was too focused on profits and notpatients.

"If people do the right thing and they don't come out with allthis commercial glory, then they would be OK," he said. "He gotaway from this medical thing and got into a commercial thing. If not forthe patients, then none of this would be possible. Others don'trealize these things, and it's all about the power of commercial,but not for me."

Brown echoed Cruick-shank's sentiments.

"The difference is I'm not out here speaking about how muchmoney we're making or bragging about anything," he said."I'm more out there to let people know we're doing thingshonestly and doing everything to code with all the guidelines sofar."

And Brown said he and his business partners have decided to invite locallaw enforcement into their business and to take them to their grow site,which is in a warehouse building at a separate location from their OldTown dispensary.